professor Zeng JianqiuDuring the May holidays a press release by the World Bank on China's internet sparked a fierce debate. According to a study, internet access in China was too expensive for most citizens. For Chinese citizens it was ten times as expensive to go on the internet compared to developed countries, Chinese media reported, although it remained pretty unclear what exactly has been compared for the last statement. It looks like the study took a national average income in China, and that does not really show the huge internal differences.
When China wants to keep on getting the benefits of the expanding telecommunication, it has to change its strategy, the press release said. (Funny enough, the report is not available on the internet and had this week not yet arrived in China.)
A report on Sina, here translated by ESWN, also mentioned a claim by India, it will provide all citizens free broadband access to all its citizens by 2009. The last claim could easily be refuted by professor Zeng Jianqiu of the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, since India has compared to China's 140 million online users hardly anybody online.
Zeng Jianqiu said that the best scientific standard should be a direct comparison. In China, the monthly bill for broadband service is usually between 80 to 120 yuan. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the corresponding bill is around US$20. Thus, the fees in China are less than in many developed countries.
Zeng Jianqiu told Xinmin Net that over the past 10 years, the communications industry in China has been growing at 2 to 3 times the rate of growth of the GDPInternet users seemed to disagree with Zeng, saying that for most Chinese the internet was still too expensive.
as a whole, and it is the engine for economic development. China is now the second largest Internet market in the world and the results are obvious. The Internet fees today are obviously lower than those several years ago, and they will continue to go down in the future.
2 comments:
In France for 30euros I have free phone call to 49 countries in in landline in France, I have 200 TV chanel for free, 28Mb internet access, a free Modem... in Shanghai for 28euros I just have 8Mb internet access..
First of all, internet access is just one fee, how about the computer?
80 rmb might not be much for some, but I know for a fact that families in the poor areas cannot even afford to pay for a 800 rmb (for high school) tuition fee per year. That is less than 80 rmb per month.
But then what if citizens can afford to access internet, what would be their interest in accessing internet? I think we tend to have such romantic idea of internet access vs education. It is also a known fact, at least for the time being, most people use internet not to learn, but entertainment. Games, gambling, music, YouTube ...
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